The present description relates generally to equipment models used to predict the performance of building equipment. The present description relates more particularly to systems and methods for determining when an equipment model no longer accurately represents the corresponding building equipment.
Equipment models are used to predict performance metrics for various types of equipment. For example, an equipment model for a chiller in a HVAC system may be used to predict a variable of interest for the chiller (e.g., power consumption, efficiency, etc.) of the chiller as a function of one or more predictor variables (e.g., chiller load, temperature setpoint, etc.). The accuracy of equipment models can have a strong impact on the performance of any system that relies upon the modeled information. For example, a model-based control methodology may use equipment models to optimally distribute loads across multiple devices based on the modeled performance of each device. If the equipment or system is no longer accurately represented by the model, the prediction capabilities may diminish and the model-based control methodology may be suboptimal. It is difficult and challenging to identify when an equipment model has diminished prediction capability.